Kicker.

John Walker is a professor of Spanish at Queen’s University.

Calgary-based Michele Martin Bosley has previously published in the Orca Sports Series a horsey novel, Jumper, for young people. In Kicker she turns her attention to the fastest growing sport in North America, soccer, whose growth at the grassroots and professional levels is staggering, especially in the area of girls’ and women’s soccer, where the numbers and the successes are rapidly outgrowing their male counterparts.

Kicker tells the story of a 14-year-old soccer player Isabelle MacAllister and her best friend, Julia, who play on the same team. Since Julia is the team’s best player and highest goal scorer, she usually wins all the glory—a cherrypicker, as Izzy calls her in a jocular way. The same criticism levelled by a teammate, Nicole, is more sinister, and constitutes one part of the plot; Nicole’s jealousy reaches dangerous heights and damages the morale of the team, as she covets Julia’s skills and opportunities to please the national team scouts. Drew Collins, the son of Isabelle’s coach, Dan Collins, is sweet on Izzy, who returns his feelings. The two teenagers are involved in a huge, exciting adventure that represents another thread of the narrative, as someone sabotages the team’s soccer field with lead poisoning, forcing the closure of the pitch and endangering their chance of qualifying for the regional championship. This episode is tied up with a century-old train robbery, buried treasure, and the contemporary descendant of the old villain, Richard Ashby, the bad guy in the teenagers’ adventure. (The robbery, in fact, is based on a 1920 historical event that took place in the Crowsnet area of Alberta.)

The exciting events of the fictionalized adventures teach the young people the value of teamwork, loyalty, honesty, perseverance, etc. as the girls struggle to make the playoffs and triumph in the face of adversity, in life as in soccer. Kicker is a fast-moving, page-turning adventure story for young teenagers. The treatment of the soccer episodes and team activities is generally convincing and well done. This is a good example of positive, life-enhancing juvenile fiction. Highly recommended.